Blues Cruise and Other News

Omelette containing Tiki brat, mushrooms and onion, accompanied by
grape tomatoes, pickled carrot slices and whole grain toast.

The top story in our local Sunday paper is about a couple from our region who went on a cruise a couple days before all the borders were slammed shut. It was a holiday at sea that turned out to be no picnic. Story here. If you are able to open it, my apologies.

It brings to mind the Gabriel Garcia Marquez story Love in Time of Cholera. It's a love story about in which two young people's initial infatuation does not unfold the way our young hero anticipates or desires. Thus, Florentino must wait a lifetime to possess the object of his desire, because Fermina Daza has married a doctor and lost interest in the waves of time that have receded behind her.

The title of the book [SPOILER ALERT] comes from the climax in which the two are finally united aboard a sailing vessel displaying the warning flag indicating contagion on board. They decide to share their love in this floating paradise for ever.

My interest in Marquez stemmed from having seen his name on a list of authors influenced by Jorge Luis Borges, whose magical realism influenced a host of authors including Umberto Eco, Carlos Fuentes, Italo Calvino an myself.  A Colombian author of both fiction and non-fiction works, Marquez received a Nobel Prize "for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts."

Another of his best known works is 100 Years of Solitude, a multigenerational novel on the order of Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks.

In addition to novels, Marquez also wrote short stories and non-fiction works. Because of his significance, I acquired and read his News of a Kidnapping, a journalistic recounting of the kidnapping, imprisonment, and eventual release of a handful of prominent figures in Colombia in the early 1990s. (Picture Dan Rather or Ted Koppel being kidnapped.) My interest, in part, was peaked by the mysteries surrounding Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel. I found it a compelling read at the time, bringing to mind a number of other stories, and the Johnny Depp film Blow.

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In other news.... from the FWIW Dept.

WHO Deletes Misleading Tweet That Spread Paranoia About COVID-19 Reinfection

Michigan Gov. Rolls Back Some of State's More Insane Coronavirus Restrictions

The Lamp of Liberty

Keep in mind that worrying diminishes the strength of our immune systems. Gratitude strengthens it. Relax. And have a safe week.